Indiana Retirement Reading List

I arrived in Indiana with a shelf full of unread books that I was hoping to finally have time to read. This included a recently acquired copy of Douglas Tallamy's Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard. That was at the top of my reading list, because I have big plans to make my Indiana yard more ecologically functional. However, I have been sidetracked by books I've found in little free libraries, books for two book clubs, and other random publications that have come my way. I'm sure I'll get to Tallamy as I start work on making my yard more friendly to birds and pollinators, but it had also been fun going in new literary directions. Here are some brief reviews of my reading so far. 

The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
This is a fantasy featuring a young woman adopted by an abbey who gradually learns about her origins and her destiny. It is set in a disorienting world that is a mixture of Age of Enlightenment society, Christian-like religion, supernatural beings, and modern scientific discoveries. The protagonist learns who her real parents are, receives a "golden compass" that answers questions but only if you can interpret its arcane symbols, and sets off on a series of dangerous adventures including with Traveler(Roma)-like allies. Every person in this world has a daemon--a protector animal that is spiritually connected to its person. Her mother, she learns, is experimenting on children in ways related to their daemon. After disrupting her mother's plans, she struggles, with help of allies, to reach her father in the far north. He is attempting to access a parallel universe via a substance labeled "dust." The book mixes recognizable aspects of European history with mythological beings (armored polar bears?) and other totally unexpected cosmic ideas. I read this engrossed as much by the unique setting as by its completely unexpected story line. It is the first in a trilogy that includes The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, which I have not read but which I plan to read as soon as I can find them in a Little Free Library, like I did the first book. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
This is the first book I read for a Banned Book Club that meets at the local Morrisson-Reeves Public Library. It was presumably banned due to language, sex, drug-use, suicidal ideation, and perhaps because it portrays a world of young high schoolers that is beyond the control of adults and indeed seemingly beyond their imagination. To me it was reassuring in that the main character, who tells the story, eventually manages to negotiate, although imperfectly, a strange new world of adolescence. 

I’m Glad my Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy
This is the first book I read for a second book club, labeled Books That Make You Think. I was invited to join this club by a psychotherapist who attended my first meeting of the Banned Book Club. This is the only time I have read an autobiography of a child star raised by a mentally ill mother who goes on to experience both anxiety-inducing success on TV and horrific eating disorders. (It's not my usual genre.) The story is a mind-bending combination of disfunctions written in an almost upbeat, off-hand style. The writing makes sense of her young life from a perceptive insider's view. It helps you understand how a pre-teen can find normality in the twisted logic of a mother who was set on living vicariously through her daughter's starlet life. It won't ruin your read if I tell you that the author leaves acting, finds her niche as a writer, and has hope for a more normal life adulthood. This is because the brilliance of this book is in the deft and extremely personal story telling, which in itself gives you hope. 

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
This is a classic, of course, which many of you have read, but which I never did. This was my second book for the Banned Book Club. It is set in a somewhat dystopian world of meagerly-paid nomadic California ranch hands in which the best hope of a couple of misfit co-travelers is to save a little money and buy a rustic place of their own. But events and personalities in the somewhat brutal work-world conspire to make even that poor hope unreachable. Hopeful George, and hulking but (in modern parlance) developmentally-delayed Lennie, are the center of a story that you sense can't end well. George takes care of Lennie through an iterant ranch hand life, but also benefits by teaming up with a man who can do physical labor better than anyone. The story starts as they have barely escaped a ranch where the easily-freaked out Lennie accidentally tore a woman's dress. Nobody's to blame except for this star-crossed milieu when Lennie freaks out again and things spiral downward. Ultimately George has to make what he sees as the least-bad choice in a hopeless situation.   

The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
This was the second book for the Books That Make You Think Club. This one didn't make me think all that much. It was clever and fun to read. Maybe someday I'll see it acted. It portrayed the upper classes of Wilde's time as frivolous and self-absorbed. Because of that, ultimately the play seemed a bit frivolous and self-absorbed.  

A Higher Loyalty, James Comey
I found this book among the used books at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store. The store features used furniture, so we went there because of the importance of being furnished. (Sorry.) Comey published this book 2018 after an ultimately failed attempt to remain the director of the FBI while being loyal to the constitution rather than loyal to the newly elected President Trump. The book combines autobiography of a personal life with his rise through U.S. Attorney in New York, to U.S. Assistant Attorney General, to Director of the FBI. There are fascinating accounts of his involvement in mafia prosecutions, investigations of the Clintons, Martha Stewart, Scooter Libby, and the torture policies established under President George W. Bush. The main theme is Comey's attempt to remain true to the higher principles of democratic government while negotiating increasingly difficult times. It should be required reading in 21st century politics and government. 

Secrets of the Abbey, Jean-Luc Bannalec
This was on the library's shelf of newly released books, among some other fresh detective novels. I almost didn't check it out, but who can resist a restored French abbey on the gorgeous Brittany coast with mysterious murders and strange goings on. The book combines a credible murder mystery with a beautifully-described setting and a coffee-swigging epicure detective--Commissaire Dupin--who enjoys seafood and coastal views as much as he does solving crimes. An extinct bird plays a role in this story, which added amusement for me. Turns out this is the 11th in this series of Commissaire Dupin mysteries, so I think I'll be reading more about him in the future. 

It's Hard to be an Animal, Robert Isaacs
Like Jenette McCurdy's book, this one is nice to read just for the interesting writing. There are many turns of phrase that surprise you with their creativity and fearlessness. Like Secrets of the Abbey, this one was also checked out on a whim from the library. Most basically, this is a novel about a talented but unassuming man named Henry and his attempts to date the irrepressible Molly. This book's quirk is that, at the same time as he starts dating Molly, he starts hearing animals speak (in English). Where others hear tweeting or barking, he hears what they are saying. And often it's not anything good, particularly the rats in the subway. If I were reading this review, this is where I would decide not to read the book. I don't usually like quirks like this. But this is so well woven into the story and it leads to such interesting adventures for Henry, Molly, and Henry's roommate Yaryk, that I was charmed. Two thumbs (claws, paws) up.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Some of the books assigned for the Banned Book Club are real classics. But in spite of a decent high school education and a class on the novel in college, I had not read this one. I guess it portrays the sordid and dissolute lifestyle in the 1920s in New York--the Jazz Age. I'm sure the a lot happened in the '20s that were not sordid and dissolute, but this book portrays drunkenness, loose sexual mores, ennui, extravagant parties, and generally self-centered pleasure seeking. The tragedy of the story is that true love and clear-headed thinking about the world seem to exist, but are just out of reach of the characters portrayed. In my favorite passage narrator Nick Carraway, after speaking to Gatsby, seems to make reference to this:
"Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something--an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever."
There is occasionally antisemitism and white bias against blacks in the book, which may be one reason for past bans, but perhaps they were also due to allusions to sex out of wedlock and drinking. But compared to today's literature, these are non-explicit allusions that seem somewhat mild to the modern reader.